A child's education often begins long before the child commences his or her formal education in kindergarten or first grade. Structured education of same sort typically begins in the home several years prior to entering school, and often is supplemented by structured learning exercises in day care centers, nursey schools and day camps. Invariably this pre-school education aims to improve the child's motor skills and hand-eye coordination. Generally pre-school education will also be structured to increase the child's vocabulary, enable the child to identify common articles and shapes in his or her environment, teach the child numbers, letters and colors, improve the child's ability to interact socially with adults and other children, and to achive a host of other specific objectives.
In the past, most of this teaching has been carried out with traditional teaching tools such as books, pencils and paper, blackboards and certain physical exercises. More recently various electronical or electro-mechanical devices have been incorporated into learning programs.
Special gloves have been developed to improve the communication skills of deaf and mute individuals. Typically this communication tool consists of a single glove bearing all of the letters of the alphabet, and perhaps one or two basic words such as "yes" and "no". An 1857 article in the "AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF AND DUMB" shows and briefly describes such a glove. Another article published in an 1883 issue of the "AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF AND DUMB" also refers to the same glove. Another article entitled "Communication with the Deaf and Blind" was published by Moi in April 1954 indicates that deaf and blind people can communicate manually by code in which certain parts of the hand are associated with particular letters. Still another reference is shown briefly in POPULAR MECHANICS, June 1979, page 90, where a glove is imprinted or embossed with both english language letters and their Braille equivilents. This glove is intended primarily as a communication device among people who are blind, deaf and/or mute. This basic glove also is shown in British Patent Specification No. 1,581,453 which issued to Matthew in December 1980 and which is entitled "Improved Communication Device". As in the POPULAR MECHANICS reference, British Patent Specification No. 1,581,453 shows a glove having both English language letters and their Braille equivilents. As noted above, the communication device shown in British Patent Specification No. 1,581,453 is employed by wearing the glove on one hand and pointing to the letters with the other hand. Thus these references merely enable one deaf, mute and/or blind person to communicate with another person.
The known instructional and communication tools are considered to be defficient in several respects. More particularly most known instructional tools do not incorporate the improvement of motor skills, hand-eye coordination and social interaction into the more traditional forms of teaching such as the learning of letters, numbers, shapes and the like. Additionally, most known instructional techniques and tools do not combine intellectual and manipulative exercises in a manner which would reinforce both the mental and physical aspects of learning. Additionally, many instructional tools provide little or no versatility. Thus an instructional tool or device that facilitates the learning of shapes generally could not also be used to teach letters, numbers, hand-eye coordination, motor control, social interaction and such. Furthermore, many instructional tools and devices, such as many mechanical, electrical or electro-mechanical devices, are extremely costly to manufacture and therefore expensive to the consumer.
The gloves for communication among handicapped people have been extremely limited, and therefore not used outside the handicapped community. More particularly, these communication tools have offered no versatility, and have been used only to enable communication of alphabetic combinations among people who are already familiar with the symbols provided thereon.
Accordingly it is an object of the subject invention to provide an inexpensive and versatile learning tool that is particularly well suited for pre-school children.
It is another object of the subject invention to provide a learning tool to facilitate teaching of letters, numbers, shapes, objects, and such.
It is an additional object of the subject invention to provide a learning tool which will improve visual and audio perception, motor skills, hand-eye coordination and social interaction.
It is a further object of the subject invention to provide a teaching tool which can teach several mental and/or physical exercises simultaneously in a manner where the skills mutually reinforce one another.
It is still another object of the subject invention to provide a learning tool that can be worn on the hand.
It is still an additional object of the subject invention to provide a learning tool which can be used without extensive prior training, knowledge or skill.